Were yours unearned by toil; nor could you see And yet, free Nature's uncorrupted child, Beneath the shaft of Tell! O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! There crowd your finely-fibred frame, His forehead wreathed with lambent flame, A heart as sensitive to joy and fear? Corrivals in the nobler gift of thought. And mock the lot unblest, The sordid vices and the abject pains, The doom of ignorance and penury! But you, free Nature's uncorrupted child, Beneath the shaft of Tell ! O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! You were a mother! That most holy name, Than the poor caterpillar owes Its gaudy parent fly. You were a mother! at your bosom fed The babes that loved you. You, with laughing eye, Each twilight-thought, each nascent feeling read, Which you yourself created. Oh! delight! A second time to be a mother, Without the mother's bitter groans: By touch, or taste, by looks or tones O'er the growing sense to roll, The mother of your infant's soul! The Angel of the Earth, who, while he guides All trembling gazes on the eye of God, A moment turned his awful face away; And as he viewed you, from his aspect sweet New influences in your being rose, Blest intuitions and communions fleet With living Nature, in her joys and woes! O beautiful! O Nature's child! 'Twas thence you hailed the platform wild, Where once the Austrian fell Beneath the shaft of Tell! O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! ODE TO TRANQUILLITY. TRANQUILLITY! thou better name To low intrigue, or factious rage; And left the bark, and blest the steadfast shore, roar. Who late and lingering seeks thy shrine, On him but seldom, Power divine Thy spirit rests! Satiety And Sloth, poor counterfeits of thee, Mock the tired worldling. Idle hope And dire remembrance interlope, To vex the feverish slumbers of the mind: The bubble floats before, the spectre stalks behind. But me thy gentle hand will lead At morning through the accustomed mead; And when the gust of Autumn crowds, Thou best the thought canst raise, the heart attune, The feeling heart, the searching soul, To thee I dedicate the whole ! The greatness of some future race, The present works of present man— A wild and dream-like trade of blood and guile, Too foolish for a tear, too wicked for a smile! TO A YOUNG FRIEND, ON HIS PROPOSING TO DOMESTICATE WITH THE AUTHOR. COMPOSED IN 1796. A MOUNT, not wearisome and bare and steep, But a green mountain variously up-piled, Where o'er the jutting rocks soft mosses creep, Or coloured lichens with slow oosing weep; Where cypress and the darker yew start wild ; And 'mid the summer torrent's gentle dash Dance brightened the red clusters of the ash; Beneath whose boughs, by those still sounds beguiled, Calm Pensiveness might muse herself to sleep; Made meek enquiry for her wandering lamb: Such a green mountain 'twere most sweet to climb, E'en while the bosom ached with lonelinessHow more than sweet, if some dear friend should bless The adventurous toil, and up the path sublime Now lead, now follow: the glad landscape round Wide and more wide, increasing without bound! O then 'twere loveliest sympathy, to mark |